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‘An Education’ PEAS Charity Dinner

The Thinking Hand Studio create a unique setting for the annual charity dinner for PEAS (Promoting Equality in African Schools).

The Thinking Hand Studio joined forces in a collaboration of young emerging architects, designers and artists to create a unique environment for the Annual PEAS (Promoting Equality in African Schools) fundraising event, where a celebrity filled audience were put through their paces by PEAS patron Jeremy Paxman in a University Challenge style quiz.Lead designer and architect Rion Willard of the Thinking Hand Studio was commissioned to create the décor for the event, which was to inspire the guests and embody the spirit of the charity and the evening which was focused on Education in African schools.‘PEAS wanted to work sympathetically with the 400 year old setting of Vintner’s hall in the City of London and there were a lot of constraints in terms of budget and not being allowed to fix anything to the protected interiors of this beautiful building. The solution was to work collaboratively by creating a brief that allowed many people to contribute by creating a unique sculpture constructed from books, which would be the centrepiece of each of the tables, these were then auctioned off at the end of the event. We approached a collective of young emerging architects, designers and artists as well as more established ones and received beautiful submissions from people such as Almanac, Studio D Tale, Freehaus, Arlene Wandera, BullRodger as well as The Thinking Hand Studio.

‘I am absolutely stunned by the standard of those book sculptures, I was looking forward to seeing them.. I wasn’t ready for how impressive they would be, I and most of the guests, had never seen anything like them! Thank you so much for co coordinating all of that.. everyone was blown away.’GEORGINA WILSON, HEAD OF PHILANTROPY, PEAS

The Wellcome Trust also generously donated hundreds of books which the Thinking Hand Studio used to create the centrepiece of the event – a giant sculpture of a flying flock of a 100 books, which soared up the main staircase, each book representing one the schools that PEAS plans to build by 2017. The event itself raised over £120,000 for the charity.The remaining book sculptures will be auctioned off shortly to continue help PEAS reach the targets of their inspiring work.